Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Thanks
to Paul Craig Roberts, a highly respected and
honoured journalist, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic
Policy during the Reagan era, academic and Chairman of the Institute for
Political Economy, we have a bit of a glimpse into the mindset of Russia during
this period when the Cold War seems to be rewarming, particularly in the minds
of America's mainstream media.

In
late April 2017, there were a handful of frightening articles that appeared in
what is now classified "the fake news media" and the "Kremlin-controlled
media" . The articles in question quoted comments made during a news
briefing by Lt. General Viktor Poznihir, Deputy Chief of the Main Operations
Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces at the annual Moscow International
Security Conference (MCIS), Russia's answer to the Munich Security Conference
which is held in Germany. The MCIS has become a forum for Russia to
present its agenda to the world and to deal with issues in world security.
Here
is a link to the MCIS website which describes the focus of the conference as
quoted here:

"The
Conference will be focused on the most critical problems of global and regional
security. The plenary sessions will look closely at the issues of combating
international terrorism, security problems in Europe and Asia-Pacific region,
role of defence agencies in enhancing security in different regions of the
world.

Counterterrorism
and counterradicalism in the Middle East, security of information space, BMD
implications, and security in Central Asia will also be in the spotlight of
separate discussion sessions of the Forum."

With
that background, let's look at how RT (Russian Television), oft-cited as a
Kremlin-inspired and controlled propaganda media outlet, reported on the
conference:

"The
United States is pursuing global strategic domination through developing
anti-ballistic missile systems capable of a sudden disarming strike against
Russia and China, according to the deputy head of operations of the Russian
General Staff.

“There is an obvious link between
Washington’s prompt global strike initiative, which seeks capability to
engage “any targets anywhere in
the world within one hour of the decision,”and the deployment of
missile launch systems in Europe and aboard naval vessels across the globe, Lt.
Gen. Viktor Poznikhir said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

“The
presence of US missile defense bases in Europe, missile defense vessels in seas
and oceans close to Russia creates a powerful covert strike component for
conducting a sudden nuclear missile strike against the Russian Federation,”Poznikhir explained.

While the US
keeps claiming that its missile defenses are seeking to mitigate threats from rogue
states, the results of computer simulations confirm that the Pentagon’s
installations are directed against Russia and China, according to Poznikhir.

American missile
attack warning systems, he said, cover all possible trajectories of Russian
ballistic missiles flying toward the United States, and are only expected to
get more advanced as new low-orbit satellites complement the existing radar
systems.

“Applying
sudden disarming strikes targeting Russian or Chinese strategic nuclear forces
significantly increases the efficiency of the US missile defense system,” Poznikhir added. American ABM (anti-ballistic
missile) systems are not only creating an “illusion” of safety from a retaliatory strike but can
themselves be used to launch a sneak nuclear attack on Russia.

In a blatant breach of the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the standard land-based launching
systems can be covertly rearmed with Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of
interceptors – and the Pentagon’s denial of this fact, according to Poznikhir,
is “at the very least
unconvincing.”

Moreover,
Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union, allowed it to develop more advanced
weapons that can now not only pose a threat to targets on the ground but in
space as well.

“In
February 2008, the Pentagon demonstrated the possibility of engaging spacecraft
with its ABM capabilities,” Poznikhir
said. “An American satellite at
an altitude of about 250 km was destroyed by a Standard-3 missile, an earlier
modification, launched from a US Navy destroyer.”

“Given
the global nature of the ABM ships’ deployment, the space operations of any
state, including the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, are
under threat.” (my bolds)

What
Lt. General Poznihir is quite eloquently stating is that the Operations Command of the Russian
General Staff has concluded that the United States is preparing to launch a
first strike nuclear attack against Russia and China.

These comments from a high-level Russian military leader are game-changing and, if it truly reflects the sentiments of Russia's
military (and I can't imagine that it doesn't given the venue), should be cause for great concern. It suggests that the
Pentagon believes that it can garner an unconditional win a first-strike
nuclear attack against Russia, an attack that Russia's military believes could
occur at any time. This possibility should have created great concern
among America's politicians and mainstream media and should have been headline
news on April 26th, 2017.

So,
how much coverage did this story get? Here's what Google turned up:

While
Lt. General Poznihir's comments appeared on a handful of other sites, they were
severely abbreviated, removing the impact of what he really said during his
news briefing. It also doesn't appear that these comments were addressed
by any Member of Congress, the Oval Office or any politician anywhere in the
Western world.

It
is fascinating to see that the real media left this story totally untouched,
likely because it doesn't fall into their narrative nor does it fit the
narrative of the White House, Congress or the Deep State that they rely on for
their "talking points".

I'd
like to close this posting with a
link to the final scenes of the 1959 post-apocalyptic classic movie, On the
Beach, from the novel by Nevil Shute. I watched this movie recently
and, as a Baby Boomer who lived through the coldest days of the Cold War Part
One, its message is one that should be absorbed by all of those who can declare
nuclear war on our behalf:

3 comments:

Like many people, I do not find what is known as the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD to be reassuring. What the world would look like following a nuclear war is very murky, yet today it seems many people consider nuclear weapons as just another tool or option for us to use in our defense if we are attacked.

The nuclear deterrent we hold is a hundred times larger than needed to stop anyone sane or rational from attacking America, and for anyone else an arsenal of any size will be insufficient. The article below delves into the cost of these programs.

Bruce Wilds: "nuclear weapons....to use in our defense if we are attacked." A defense when attacked is legitimate BUT the US is never attacked. The USA does all the initial attacks and will do so with nuclear weapons on Russia, maybe China. It's been planned by the neocons for a long time. US hegemony demands ownership of the entire world. Innocent Iran is on the hit list, maybe before innocent Russia, but HRC would have been at war already if elected. Don't know what crazy Trump will do, but the war mongers are already winning him over, he's so stupid. I'm expecting the end of the world because the US and Israel are completely immoral.

But China and Russia are letting it happen. A red line and willingness to erase these systems in South Korea, Romania and at sea, etc would sharpen not only the public focus but also force US to show to which extent they are willing to go.

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About Me

I have been an avid follower of the world's political and economic scene since the great gold rush of 1979 - 1980 when it seemed that the world's economic system was on the verge of collapse. I am most concerned about the mounting level of government debt and the lack of political will to solve the problem. Actions need to be taken sooner rather than later when demographic issues will make solutions far more difficult. As a geoscientist, I am also concerned about the world's energy future; as we reach peak cheap oil, we need to find viable long-term solutions to what will ultimately become a supply-demand imbalance.